The Cleric and the Orc
by Akktri
Summary: A new visitor arrives. Hank, Sheila, Presto, Diana and Bobby grow up and give up on the Dungeon Master.
1. Chapter 1: The Ride

Reality stopped making sense the moment I set foot in that ride south of Epcot center.

It was a Big Brothers Big Sisters event. We were taking a bunch of kids with Down Syndrome to Disneyland for the day.

We stayed at the Mariott in Anaheim and took a yellow school bus to the front entrance, the same yellow bus we rode for a good thousand miles or so from Kansas City. Other than a few screaming incidents at the beginning, and frequent delays due to bladder control issues, those kids were angels.

To protect the kids, we were supposed to have "two deep" leadership at all times. I roomed with an adult named Joe, who was ten years older than me, and ran the youth group at the church across town. Me, I just work at Walmart. The only reason I was there at all was because someone at his church sponsored me.

When we entered the park that morning, we all had our charges, Joe had Georgie, a thin brown haired boy with a gnarled hand and Asiatic features, and I had Emily.

Emily was a sweet girl, her plump face always smiling, her closely set eyes criscrossed but bright.

That day, she insisted on wearing her Snow White dress.

Her companion, ironically enough, wanted to wear a Hunchback of Notre Dame shirt. We tried to discourage him, but he evidently identified with the misunderstood hero who overcame his deformities to save the town and find true love. Somehow I don't think that's how the book went, but I wasn't going to rain on his parade by telling him "Hunchie" was burned alive like Frankenstein, or whatever happened in that story. Okay, so I never watched the show.

As usual, the place was a mob, elbow to elbow with people, and you had to stand in huge lines for everything. We had our kids on those leash-like wrist strap things so they wouldn't get lost.

I almost think they enjoyed the costumed characters more than the rides. If I had known that beforehand, we could have just dressed up like Mickey and visited the home. But they did enjoy a few things. Emily loved Dumbo and the Teacup Ride, and Georgie liked Buzz Lightyear, the Haunted Mansion, and some other things.

Considering his taste in entertainment, you would have thought it would have been Georgie that found the ride with the dragons, but it was actually my cross eyed princess.

"Dwagon!" she kept yelling. "I wanna ride!"

It was already dusk. We'd already been on the E.T. ride and a bunch of other stuff on or around Epcot. Georgie was tiring out, moaning that he wanted to go home, but Emily was still full of energy.

We were all tired. It was a long day of walking and standing in lines and getting lost. We tried to tell her no, and maybe tomorrow, but she was undeterred.

The only reason why I said yes was because there didn't seem to be any line, a point she continually reminded me of.  
Joe got Georgie a soda and set him down on a bench while we approached the turnstile.

I had never head of a Dungeons and Dragons ride before. In fact, I could have sworn the area had been a staff only maintenance area an hour or so ago while we had been walking to some other ride. But then again, it was easy to get lost and mistake one homogenized section of the park for the other.

The lack of a line was an even stranger thing. The building shimmered in the waning sun like a mirage, and it looked like nobody was on duty. Even so, nothing had been roped off, and there were no closing signs.

The girl dragged me through the giant fanged mouth of a dragon sculpture. We wandered through a maze of ropes and walkways appropriate for the typical Disneyland crowd, but saw nobody until we got up to the cars.

Everything in the area had sort of a strange medieval-esque quality to it. The room was decorated with fantasy monsters, the walls were covered in shields and heraldry, and the workers all dressed like serfs. Emily loved it, but I was creeped out by the people. They reminded me of zombies, or androids.

My charge, though short, hadn't been stopped by height warnings before, and nothing seemed to be out of order, so we climbed aboard a red roller coaster car painted to look like a Swiss shield, and let the creepy serfs our shoulder bars and fasten us in.

Immediately the ride started up. We were the only passengers.

At first, it was Grade A cheese. The car rolled slowly through a fake cave as cheap animatronic dragons and manticore popped out at us and roared. It reminded me of the Small World or the Pirate ride, without the water or music. Goblins laughed maniacally with glowing red eyes. Ogres threatened the car with their clubs. And then a giant dragon head dropped from the ceiling and blew hot fire at the car.

Even though the rail dropped precisely at the moment the searing flames poured out (I guess from the Disney propane system) I could smell burning rubber and plastic, and when I looked back into the row behind me, I could see heat bubbles and exposed stuffing where the fire had scorched the seats.

Emily grabbed my hand. Normally she's unafraid of such illusions, but the fire had given us both a start.

The ride picked up speed, and the robots started getting more violent.

A club appeared right in front of my face and I had to duck my head to keep it from knocking my block off.

Emily screamed as something ripped her shoulder bar away.

When I found a flaming arrow stuck in mine, I quickly pulled the release latch, removing my harness as well.

Something clanged, and my shoulder bar came flying off the seat with a noisy crashing sound.

The ride took on the feel of an Indiana Jones mine cart ride, rocking here and there, nearly dumping the car off the tracks.

Thinking quickly, I waited for a safe, injury free moment and jumped into the melted seat behind me, yanking Emily into the adjacent seat just seconds before an axe imbedded itself in her old spot. We buckled down our partially melted shoulder bars and held on.

Seeing a wall of flame, I shoved Emily's head down and hunkered over as a wave of heat blew across the car, filling the air with toxic fumes.

At this point, the track dropped nearly ninety degrees and we clamped our hands tightly to the railing out of instinct.

We hit the base of the drop with such force that I thought there was a gap in the track, my intestines feeling like they had crawled up inside my rib cage.

The car shot around a bend, zooming through a giant loop.

We turned upside down, tilted completely sideways, then the track disappeared and we were flying through the dark.

I heard nothing. No rattling to indicate a track, no whooshing of hidden machinery indicating a silent coast. There was just this eerie feeling of gravity shifting, my stomaching seeming to be crawling all the way up my throat.

When I saw light again, I noticed we were flying through a cave.

A dirty, slimy, real cave, not the sanitized Disney Imagineer version of one, like it were some seamy long forgotten maintenance passageway built from actual existing geological features.

I could only glance at my surroundings for a second before we hit a stalactite, smashing into a rock shelf.

The impact was jarring, the car definitely not designed for that kind of abuse. I could almost feel bones cracking, and I couldn't help but worry about how it affected my weaker friend. But everything was happening too fast for conversations to be had.

The car flipped over backwards, the rear cars bashing into something else.

Our seat restraints kept us in place, which was both a blessing and a curse. We couldn't go rag doll and get crushed, but there was still a chance we could get smashed like a pancake between a boulder and our seats. Praying this wouldn't be the case, I just clutched Emily's hand, gripping the rail in front of me with my other hand.

The car flipped, and suddenly we were plunging into the the inky depths of a freezing underground lake.

I pulled the safety latches on the side of the car, releasing our harnesses, gritting my teeth in frustration at Emily's blinding paranoia about water.

Ever since her father had tried to drown her during a fishing trip, she had avoided pools and lakes at all costs, and proved to be exceedingly stubborn around bath time.

The girl wasted air by screaming, kicking me and clawing at my face in a frantic struggle to reach the surface.

Unfortunately, through the dim light, I saw there wasn't much of a surface left.

When our car had hit that one stalactite, it had destroyed the only thing strong enough to hold up the weight of the ceiling. As we floundered, the smaller supports crumbled under the burden, and the air was full of falling rocks, dirt and boulders.

Still, I had to do something, and fast. Emily was taking on water, and we'd be needing CPR before she turned blue.

I flailed for the surface in a desperate attempt to pop up for air, but I only moved a fathom before finding myself caught in the clutches of an underwater whirlpool.

Something hit me in the head, and I drifted into the depths of a dark murky dream.

I awoke on a rocky beach, not a California beach, by the looks of it. It seemed more like the type of shore you'd find along the Missouri river, full of sharp pointy chunks of metamorphic rock and miscellaneous chert.

The beach lay along a huge lake inside what appeared to be a dead volcano.

Emily.

In a panic, I forced myself to a sitting position, searching for her blue and white princess dress.

I discovered it about five yards down the beach, but the girl wasn't in it.

Instead, I found it wrapped around a sort of horned olive green warthog with human limbs. I lifted one of its paws, and found Emily's spray painted aluminum Tinkerbell gumball machine ring wrapped around one of its fat fingers.

A whole range of emotions ran through me as I tried to process the information.

Even with a snout, the thing reminded me of Emily, but it wasn't Emily.

I didn't believe in fairy tales. I wasn't going to kiss this thing just to find out if it would turn into Emily or not.

The blood on its face made me think it ate her, even though it most of it seemed to be from cuts and bruises. I couldn't say with confidence that the bloody teeth resulted from a mouth injury. But then again, what kind of beastly savage would kill a little girl and put on her things?

I didn't believe in fairies, but I did believe in three eyed fish and mutants. Even so, why would such a thing put on her dress?  
The thing looked dead, possibly from drowning or being hit by something. It wasn't breathing, but I wasn't eager to do animal CPR.

I stood up, shouting my charge's name.

No answer.

I marched toward the tall marble and slate walls, shouting at the top of my lungs.

"She can't hear you," I heard a voice saying. "She took on a lot of water."

I spun around, but saw only a crow. It hopped away from me.

I stared in the distance. "Where is she!"

"Where you left her."

"I didn't leave her! We got separated by the whirlpool!"

"She is still with you."

"Where."

"Very close. Surely you recognized the ring!"

"Who are you!"

No answer.

The crow tilted its head sideways to look at me. The beak opened. "Save the life of the beast, and you will save the girl."

And then it flew away.

"Right," I told myself. "No more Narnia books."

But I went along with the bird's advice anyway. My rationale was that I was still unconscious from the rock slide and this was acceptable dream logic. Plus I figured a pet might be a nice thing to have in the middle of nowhere.

It was the domesticating angle that motivated me. The only time a boar turns into a person when you kiss it is when it involves fake things like giant talking candles and catchy musical numbers.

I know CPR. I only saw canine CPR on a TV commercial. I assumed the main difference was making the creature's muzzle airtight so its lungs can expand when you breathe into it. After turning the thing over and pumping the water out, I got it to work, counting off chest compressions by the Stayin' Alive method rather than the old `one one thousand' method.

The beast coughed and sat up. "M-Mike?" it said in my girl's voice.

I stared in disbelief. "What the hell?"

"Mike!" the creature cried, wrapping its arms around me.

I shuddered, gently pushing the thing back.

"Wuh happen? I feel fun-nee."

I backed away from her in shock.

Her eyes uncrossed, then crossed again. "Boo!" she said with an idiot laugh.

I crept back some more, shuddering.

She pouted. "Whudd da maddah, Mike?"

"Stop talking like that," I said.

"Stop talk like whaa?"

I'd read stories about doppelgangers, malevolent spirits, fairies, demons who sneaked in beds and replace babies, wives and other people you cared about. "What have you done with Emily!"

The creature looked confused. "I no understand. Why you ask wudd I do wid me?"

I retreated, and she came forward.

"Is dis game, Mike?"

"No," I said, backing around a boulder.

"Why you act scare'?"

My disgust must have been plain on my face, for the next thing she said was, "You said I not ugly. You said I beaudihul prin-hess."

Emily had a few self esteem issues. I actually had said those things to her. I had told her she was a beautiful child of God.

"I don't know who you are," I stammered.

The creature let out a laugh that sounded like a sob. "I Emily! Your friend!"

I sighed, waving at the lake. "Look at yourself and tell me you're Emily."

She held up a green paw, examining it for a minute. She laughed again, that type of simpleton's laugh I was used to hearing from a different mouth. "I'm green!" she said with a broad grin.

"I know," I said quietly.

She leaned over the water, staring at her reflection. "I look fun-nee." She turned to look at me again. "Dat why you scared?"

I shrugged.

Tears rolled down her pig snout. "Mike, am I not beaudihul prin-hess anymoh?"

I swallowed. "I don't know."

I pointed to a beached roller coaster car. "Wait here. I need time to think."

She plopped down on a damp rubber seat. "Okay, Mike. I be vewwy good. You come back fo' me, okay?"

"Sure," I said noncommittally.

Then I walked about half a kilometer down the rock strewn beach. As I marched ahead, I could hear the thing weeping and tearing rips in Emily's dress.

I wandered around the lake for what seemed like miles, searching the shores and the water for any sign of a tiny naked body. Although I believed in doppelgangers, due to seeing one, I didn't believe in doppelgangers with sewing machines. To the best of my knowledge, therefore, there could only be one dress.

I found no sign of her.

A yard down the coast, I suddenly discovered a gangly twenty year old in a green robe and a pointy hat sitting on a large rock.

When I met this stranger's stare, he arose like he expected me, giving me a friendly wave as I approached.

The stranger gave me a little bow. "Greetings. I am Presto, the good magician."

"Hi," I said. "I'm looking for a little girl. She has Downs Syndrome and I think she might be drowning."

The stranger's face became very grave and dark. "Your friend will never be safe as long as the creature is alive."

He took off his hat, waving his fingers over the opening, and a glowing light erupted from within the cone.

His hand reached deep within this light, drawing out a long silver blade engraved with strange runes. He handed it to me.

"End the creature's life, and your friend will be restored to you."

I took the knife, staring at it.

When I looked up, the stranger was gone.

It just didn't make sense. Why do CPR on a monster if I'm just going to stab it to death? My only guess was this was some kind of test, and either the guy in green or the bird was wrong. I wandered the beach, lost in thought.

Almost mechanically, I made my way back to the roller coaster car.

The creature hadn't moved from the spot. Instead, it had curled up in a ball, silently rocking back and forth in a semi catatonic state.

"Who was green man?" she said with a vacant tear stained expression.

"I don't know. He said his name was Presto."

"Wha dihhe say?"

I frowned at my companion. "I..."

My hands nervously fingered the hilt of the blade.


	2. Chapter 2: Volcano Lake

Kill the creature and she'll be restored, I thought. It had a certain compelling quality in terms of dream logic. But my stomach turned at the thought of inflicting pain on such a friendly, helpless animal. Death by stabbing is neither quick nor painless, especially if you don't know how to do it right. Even if this were a dream, I didn't want to live with guilt and blood on my hands. I hate dreams like that.  
"He...wants me to hurt you."  
I threw the knife into the lake. "You see any lions yet?"  
"Yeah," the creature smiled.  
I gawked at her. "Really?"  
The creature gave me a mischievous lopsided grin. "Kid-ding."  
Great. I frowned.  
"I hungry. Where food?"  
I stared at the cliffs surrounding the lake and sighed. "I don't know, monster. I think we'll have to go hungry for a long, long time."  
The crater lake had sheer walls. I and the monster had to walk for what seemed like hours before we could find a way through.  
All the while, the creature screamed and cried about being hungry and tired.  
Eventually I just told it to shut up, and that I was hungry too.  
"You never teh me shaddap," she pouted.  
"Sorry," I said. "But finding Emily is more important than food, even if I could find some."  
She didn't understand, so I had to make it clearer. "No one's going to give us any food. We're going to have to eat whatever we can find whenever we can find it. We might have to eat bugs."  
With a shrug, she picked up a scorpion and ate it. It seemed completely natural for a beast like her to do that sort of thing.  
"Good," I said. "Just don't let them sting you."  
"I won't."  
I still saw no sign of the girl's body anywhere. The thought of her soul leaving her body and entering this thing occurred to me, but I pushed it away.  
I figured climbing the rim would give me a better vantage point to find the body, so I climbed over piles of rocks and boulders, scrambling up one pillar of rock to another, until I stood at the very top, squinting at the land below, hopping down a few shelves and back up to get a better look.  
I wasn't an eagle. Although I could see a fair bit, I couldn't see everything. No pasty white child bodies within my field of vision, unless they were under the lake. On my opposite side, outside the crater, I could see forests. Miles and miles of trees. Not a single sign of civilization. I figured I'd worry about that later, returning my attention to the search of the crater.  
I'd seen a few other areas on foot, so I knew she wasn't in those places, but there were still some unexplored areas down at the other ends. Desperate to find my charge, I decided to go the whole circuit to make sure.  
I climbed down, searching for the next handy cliff, then the next.  
"How much longer?" the monster moaned.  
"I don't know. You can stop and rest if you want. I have to find Emily. I'd rather starve to death than leave here without knowing she's all right."  
"I right here," the monster said. "I Emily."  
"I know, I know. But I want to find the other Emily. She can't swim. She'll die if I don't find her."  
"She aweady dead," said the monster. "When rowa coasta go boom, I go unda wawah. I not breathe!" She pantomimed choking. "An-den, an-den, funny fish." She waggled her fingers in the air mysteriously. "Bright light. And den, I feel fun-nee all ovah. My face." She touched the sides of her head. "My ear. An-den boom." She waved to the crater.  
So she encountered a "funny fish" that glowed and made her into a monster. As compelling as the explanation was, I wasn't about to accept a magical explanation from a doppelganger, so I kept going. "Like I said, you can rest awhile while I look around. I'll come back for you."  
By the time I had reached the opposite end and reached the spot that faced the roller coaster car across the river, it was dark. My feet were cold from fording the shallows at the end of the lake, my arms ached from scalng the tall rocks, my stomach ached from lack of food, and it looked like it was going to be a freezing night.  
I heard the creature let out a ghastly cry, moaning something about being afraid of the dark. In a yell, I asked the creature where it was and if it could come over. I could barely see my hands in front of my face, but I waved my arms and called her over.  
All of a sudden, I heard a tremendous splash. It sounded like a boulder had fallen off of something and dropped in the lake. Then I heard the sound of someone splashing through ankle deep water.  
The next moment, the creature was breathing on me.  
"How did you get here!" I gasped.  
"I get strooong." she said. "I move rollah coda easy!"  
I guessed she had somehow used the roller coaster car to cross the river, though I wasn't sure how until the following morning.  
"I cold."  
The creature shivered, pressing close to my body for warmth.  
Being exhausted, I made myself as comfortable as I could on the rocks, curling up in the monster's arms.  
With the first rays of dawn, I awoke with my body aching all over.  
At last I finished the circuit, scowling at the wall of collapsed rubble that blocked our way home.  
I turned and walked away from there with a sigh of resignation. I figured if this creature was not, in fact, my girl under a magical curse, Emily had either learned how to swim and gotten lost, or she was in the bottom of the lake.  
I had looked in the lake. I'd practically stuck my face into the lake to see if the body was there. But at the moment, with the sunrise of a new day, I knew there'd be no way to save her life, if she were in fact down there. It was too late.  
The next order of business, therefore, was to get my immediate needs taken care of, then search the surrounding countryside for kidnappers or lost girls.  
As I pondered this, I saw a sight that gave me pause.  
Out there on the water, I saw the car that I had ridden in, and it was stacked on top of two other submerged cars.  
The loud splash. The wading sound. I didn't want to believe it, but I didn't know what else to think.  
I pointed. "Did you move those cars?"  
She nodded. "Jusda top `un. I strong now!" She flexed a splotchy green muscle. Then she munched a scorpion.  
"Let's find some real food," I said.  
"Yipee!" said the monster. "I wanna piz-zah and pan-cake."  
"Which way should we go?"  
She pointed to a cliff a few yards away. "I t'iink I see smoke."


	3. Chapter 3: The Strangers

We got to the top of that column of rock with surprising speed. The creautre may have had the personality of Emily, but it would never need help climbing a jungle gym or getting up on a slide like her.

We crossed the ridge, winding our way down stagged shelves of rock, following the smoke down a massive mound of rock, then gravel and a green hill populated by sticky cedar trees.

"Monster," I said to the creature, intending to thank it.

"I'm Emily!" it stubbornly replied.

"No," I said. "No you're not."

"Yes I am! Call me Emily!" she practically screamed.

"Fine. Fine, you're Emily. Can I at least call you Emily 2? Maybe Millie?"

"I like Millie," she smiled. "It okay."

"Okay. Millie. I just wanted to thank you for helping me last night and everything."

She gave me a hug.

We descended into a forest full of brush, wildflowers and leafy ferns, some as tall as my head. Rabbits and chipmunks scattered at our noisy approach, darting off into thickets.

The smoke was nearer now. I cautioned my companion to be silent.

Hearing voices, I ducked behind a giant fern, peering through the fronds. Millie loudly blurted something, but I shushed her, motioning for her to hide.

A few yards off, I see a pair of adults, a long haired black woman in a two piece bikini made of animal pelt, and that creepy wizard in the green robe.

The guy had glasses now, and he seemed to lack that serene self confidence I saw back in the crater.

"This seems a little far to be going for firewood, Diana," the guy was saying in a timid voice.

"We're not out here for the firewood," she smiled.

"Then what are we out here for?" I could hear his voice cracking. I had difficulty reconciling this nerd with the guy who calmly told me to stab my pig friend.

"We..." she said, slipping the hat off his head. "Are here for _us_!"

She throws the hat over a vine a foot away from my head.

I could see the guy's adam's apple bobbing. "Us? You mean, you and me?"

"Who else?"

"I didn't know there was an us. I mean, is an us." He swallowed again.

"Well there is," she said as she rubbed his back.

"But why?"

"I see how you look at me. You may act like you're concentrating on spells or whatever, but you've been giving me the eye. Especially when we're swimming and you think I'm not looking."

"Gee, Diana. I'm sorry. I, uh..."

She wrapped her arms around his neck. "Don't be. I've been looking, too."

He laughed nervously.

"What."

"Nothing. You're just getting stir crazy because Hank and Sheila are an item and they've got a baby on the way. I'm like the last man on earth."

She squeezed his shoulders, kneading them. "Even if that were the case, and I'm not saying it isn't, I could have gone into any village on this world and picked up any man I wanted. But I didn't want those men, Presto. I wanted you."

I saw the guy turning all kinds of pink. "I'm flattered. I really am. But why would you want me? I'm just a scrawny nerd!"

"Don't sell yourself short, Presto. There's more to life than being a musclebound hunk. You've saved my life more times than I can count."

He shrugged. "We're a team. And you've saved my life plenty of times, too."

She waved her hand to dismiss the comment. "And you're sweet, kind, thoughtful, clever, funny...and your'e not really that bad looking. Honestly, I think it's all the running around we've been doing." She pressed her head against him, looking in his eyes. "Presto, I love you."

"I...do too! I mean, I love you too."

And then she's pushing him against a tree and kissing him.

She unhooks something on her outfit, and his robe falls off and he's standing in his underwear.

Then I see her pulling her top off.

I looked away, deciding to locate the source of the smoke and come back when they were done.

However, when I tried to sneak away, I heard the woman saying, "Presto, can you conjure some sort of contraceptive from that hat of yours?" And all I could do was duck and hope that Presto didn't see me.

"Uhh, sure!" he was stuttering, and for a moment I thought he saw me.

His eyes seemed to meet mine through the foliage, but he didn't react. Instead, he was twiddling his fingers above his hat.

"No goofy poems this time," she said. "We'll end up with a raincoat and an innertube."

"Right," he stammered.

I didn't want to watch any more, but they were standing too close. The slightest move would give away my presence.

As the guy continued waving his fingers, I heard the woman say, "Honestly, Presto. All that fumbling, and those magical mistakes, that was because of me, wasn't it?"

"Uh...maybe?" And then he pulls a diamond ring out of his hat. "Aw, gee!"

The moment he turned around, the woman let out a gasp of surprise.

"Oh Presto!" she breathed.

After a long pause in which I still wasn't able to escape without attracting their attention, I heard her say, "You're right. We're committed. We can handle a baby."

"We can? I mean, of course we can!"

Throughout all of this, I had noticed how remarkably quiet Millie had become. To my surprise, she hadn't interrupted the lovers by noisily stomping around, adding stealth to the list of strange new powers she manifested.

That being said, she still didn't understand the concept of tact.

The moment the guy had slipped the ring on the woman's finger and started back up with the kissing, the monster burst out of the thicket, shouting and waving hi.

"The moment I'm about to get lu-I mean, get a life, and this happens!"

"Orcs!" the woman screamed, presumably to her other colleagues.

And then the two were throwing their clothing back on, and the woman was brandishing a glowing staff.


	4. Chapter 4: Interpersonal Conflicts

"Presto!" the woman called. "Hat!"

The guy waved his fingers over the opening in his wizard's cap.

"Don't get distracted, Presto. Eyes on the hat, not my butt."

"Right," he frowned.

"You'll get to see all you want later."

Deciding it the best time to sneak out and try to save my friend, I crept around the area in a wide circle, pretending like I hadn't been lurking behind a tree during their romantic overtures.

"You made it a sandwich?" I heard the woman cry as I made it halfway there. "I told you not to look at my butt!"

"I didn't! Even though it is a nice one. I dunno. Maybe we can bait this thing away from us?"

When I approached the couple, the guy had thrown the sandwich into the bushes, and Millie was bending over the weeds, eating it.

They could have fled, but they seemed calmer.

Well, until I made an appearance.

"Stop!" the woman shouted. "Who goes there!"

I pointed at the guy in the robe. "Ask him. He should know."

She put her hands on her hips, frowning at Presto.

"Hey! Don't look at me! I've never seen this guy before in my life!"

"You were in the crater. You took out a knife and told me to stab Millie."

"Millie?" they said in unison.

I pulled the creature out of the bush. "This is Millie."

I told them my story.

"She's cute," said the woman.

"Yeah," said the wizard. "What is she, like, the orc princess or something?"

"Not exactly."

The couple stared at each other, then at us.

"I don't know who you talked to," said Presto. "But he's not me. I would never tell you to do something that crummy to a friend."

"Sounds like Vengor," the woman said.

"Maybe. But you can't blame every bad thing in the universe on him."

"Are you sticking up for him now?"

"No, but, you know, that's like blaming the devil on everything that happens on our world."

"True."

We were joined by a muscular blonde in a green tunic and leggings, fabric cut in a decidedly medieval style. "I heard shouting. What's going on?"

My new acquaintances explained the situation.

"Hank, this is Millie," Presto said as he gestured to the creature. He waved to me. "And this is uh..."

"Miguel Flores," I said. "But you can call me Mike."

"Sheila didn't get up, did she?" Presto asked.

"No," said Hank. "I told her to rest and hide herself with her cloak."

Suddenly the air next to him parted, and I saw a freckled redhead in a blue tunic appear out of nowhere. The swollen stomach told me this was Sheila.

"I thought my water was breaking," she said. "But it was a false alarm."

She gasped when she saw Millie. "Are there more of them nearby?"

I shook my head. "Can someone please tell me what's going on?"

Hank shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Let's talk about it at camp."

He glanced at Presto. "Did you guys get firewood yet?"

They both looked red.

"We uh..." Presto stammered. "We were, but we ran into these guys!"

I feigned ignorance and said sorry, and the two were urged to hurry up and get the firewood.

We left the two behind, following Hank to his "base of operations."

Camp proved to be a primitive affair, consisting of one vinyl dome tent and a crudely constructed tipi. In the center of camp I saw a ring of stones surrounding a dying fire, and some big logs for sitting.

"I keep itching," said the pregnant lady. "I thought it was poison ivy, but I'm getting it all over the place. You think it has something to do with my skin stretching?"

"Gee, I dunno, Sheila," said Hank. "Maybe we can go look for some balm in a nearby town or something."

He helped her onto a log, where she started scratching herself.

"You're not getting welts, are you?"

"No. I don't think they're bug bites."

Hearing clopping sounds, I looked to the edge of the clearing and saw a small white pony stomping into the clearing. A long swirling horn projected from its muzzle. A unicorn.

A young man in a Viking helmet and a bearskin loincloth rode on its back, his hand clutching a fistful of dead rabbits. "Dinner!" he yelled.

When he saw Millie, he dropped the rabbits and dismounted, pulling out a huge glowing club.

"Chill, Bobby!" Hank cried. "She's a friend!"

"She?"

"Did you notice the cute dress?" Sheila asked.

Millie smiled.

"Cute!" He stared at Millie in disgust. "I..." He shook his head. "Never mind." He picked up his rabbits, dropping them in Sheila's lap.

"Ugh!" she cried.

"What! You wanted something to do!" He handed her a knife. "Cut carefully so we can cure the skins and sell them."

She sighed. "We used to be afraid to kill rabbits. We didn't want to offend Dungeon Master."

"Yeah. There's no reason to care about that anymore. Eric was right. The guy always sends us on some wild goose chase that never pans out. He can take the carrot he'd been dangling over our heads and shove it up his ass."

At the mention of a carrot, the unicorn uttered a sound like an adult goat bleating combined with a female horse whinny. It clopped closer, whiffling as it searched in vain for orange vegetables. It licked the boy in the face.

He laughed. "Sorry, boy. It was just an expression."

The unicorn let out a frustrated snort.

"So," I asked Hank. "What are you guys doing here?"

So he told me about the ride, and how they'd met a character named Dungeon Master who gave them magic weapons and sent them on long, dangerous missions with the promise of sending them home with whatever magic item they were supposed to find, but it never worked, so they just gave up, generally getting on the guy's bad side.

"Have you seen Eric?" Hank asked the boy.

"Naw. He went out fishing, but I bet he can't even do that right."

"I stopped trusting him the moment he brought us those hallucinogenic mushrooms. I shudder to think what fish he's got for us."

The boy offered his hand to me. "Bobby."

I introduced myself to the stranger, then alluded to the fact that maybe I should get the firewood because the other two guys might be awhile. He shrugged like he didn't care, so I wandered around close to camp, searching for some dry wood.

It seemed they had picked the place pretty clean, indicating they had camped there for a long, long time. It therefore took awhile to find some good material, but I didn't have to go nearly as far as the place where I met the amorous couple.

When I had a sizable pile set up by the fire pit, I found a man in a gold outfit and chain mail marching in with a string of minnows, a tiny trout, and a large black fish with a demonic looking red eye.

When he set the food next to Sheila, I heard her muttering, "If you guys get my clothes any filthier, I'm going to scream!"

"I didn't know we had guests," the stranger frowned. "That's not very much food."

"I'm sorry about that," I said. "I'm willing to help any way I can." I offered my hand. "I'm Mike."

He didn't shake my hand. "My hands are dirty."

"That's Eric," said Hank.

I gave him a friendly nod, but he just rolled his eyes.

I glanced at Millie and found her busily stuffing her mouth with termites she found in the log she'd been sitting on.

"I'd love to help you get food, but I don't know how."

The boy grinned. "Don't worry. I'll show you."

And so I followed him into the woods, and we snared some more rabbits and a squirrel.

That took awhile. When we got back to camp, the sun was full overhead, and the nerd and the woman in the fur bikini were sitting next to a tent with rumpled clothing, giggling and whispering to one another.

"Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?" said Eric.

"I thought for sure she'd prefer Bobby," said Hank.

Sheila scratched herself. "He's too young. Just because they wear the same type of outfit doesn't mean they're a perfect fit."

"Yeah!" Bobby grimaced.

The guy in mail frowned. "Junior here would rather make love to his horned pony!"

The unicorn uttered an enraged bleat.

The boy clenched his fists, glaring red faced at the guy. "You take that back!"

"Take what back?" Eric shrugged. "I didn't say nothing!" He paused. "Nothing except maybe girls with two legs aren't your thing. Just saying!"

Then the two were rolling on the ground, punching each other.

"Guys! Cool it! If you can't get along, go find another place to camp!"

"Gladly!" Eric spat.

"Sure thing!" Bobby shot back. "And maybe he can go back to that goblin queen that he almost married!"

Strangely enough, Eric seemed to be giving that idea serious thought.

Just then, I noticed the sound of a zipper zipping open.

I looked over to the dome tent and saw a funny little man in a red robe standing in the opening, pretending to be yawning from a long nap. A ring of long flowing white hair framed his bald head.

The guy casually strolled up to the fire, then waddled in front of me, his eyes twinkling as a smug grin spread across his face.

"You!" Eric screamed, leaping around the fire.

He grabbed the little guy on the shoulder, spun him around, and punched him right in the face.

"That's what I think about all your bullshit tests! You show up at our camp again, and I swear I'll fucking kill-"

He didn't finish the sentence. The little man had calmly raised a hand, creating a sort of explosion that sent the guy flying into a tree with such force that the trunk cracked and the top end crashed down on the tipi, smashing it to bits.

Everyone stared at him. Even the unicorn.

"My apologies, pupils. I acted only in self defense!"

"Seems a tad excessive," I said.

"Yes. And I'm sorry. It was a blind attack in the interest of self preservation."

He waddled up to the broken tree, using magical energy to throw the toppled end into a nearby forest.

He frowned as he stared at the crumpled body on the ground, shaking his head and making tsk noises.

"I'm afraid that your friend the Cavalier is dead."


	5. Chapter 5: The Cleric

I stared at Eric's body, wondering who exactly was good and who was evil in this weird world that I had arrived in. As I turned my attention to the glum expression on the face of the little man in the robe, I decided that maybe this place wasn't like Narnia, maybe there were shades of gray.

"Eric!" Sheila cried, running to the side of the body.

"Dungeon Master!" Hank shouted. "How could you!" Then he was kneeling next to the corpse.

He shook his head sadly.

I locked eyes with Presto. "Is this the Dungeon Master you told me about?"

"I...think so. I mean, I've never really seen anyone hit him before."

"He's like God," said Bobby. "When you have a healthy baby, he's good, when he sends a tsunami and kills a thousand people, his will is mysterious."

"Yeah," Presto muttered. "You both are starting to sound like Eric."

There was laughter, then people started crying, even the unicorn. When I started wondering whether unicorn tears tasted like peppermint candy or vanilla syrup, I had to force myself not to laugh. This was no time to think about unicorns farting rainbows and pooping out cupcakes.

"Someone get the shovel out of the tent," said Hank. "There's nothing we can do for him."

"That's not entirely correct, Ranger," said the Dungeon Master. "We have a Cleric in our midst."

Everyone stared at me.

"What," I said. "So I might be a volunteer youth leader. You want me to pray over him or something?"

They didn't reply.

At first, I wasn't sure why they stared. I mean, who was to say that Bobby, Hank, or even the rainbow farting unicorn wasn't a cleric?

But then I noticed I was suddenly wearing a ragged looking brown robe and a strange glowing necklace.

I stared at the little man. "I don't get it," I said. "What do you want me to do?"

Instead of responding, the guy just turned into a raven and flew away.

"Great," I sighed. "I can see why you guys are frustrated with him."

"As Eric says, er, said, he's King Cryptic," Presto sniffed.

"I think your object of power is that necklace," said Hank. "Maybe you can lay that on Eric or something...If it even works."

Figuring it couldn't do any harm, or anything period, I walked to the corpse.

As I knelt down next to him, I suddenly discovered my hands were glowing.

It seemed appropriate for me to lay my hands on his chest, even though the injury had been to his skull and spinal column.

The glow spread from my hands to my fingertips to Eric's chain mail and his body.

I felt something warm trickling out my nostrils. Red platters dribbled onto his tunic.

Then my eyes rolled back in my head, and it felt like I were having a heart attack.

Eventually I could take no more, and I fell over on the dirt, gasping and clutching my chest.

Feeling a tickle in the back of my throat, I dry heaved twice, and winged insects came flying out of my mouth.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a figure in chain mail, and it was sitting up. I'd apparently brought the dead back to life.

"What!" I heard him saying. "What's everybody staring at!" He groaned, rubbing his skull. "Does anyone have an aspirin? My head is killing me!"


End file.
